This invention relates to improvements in an elevator control system employing an electronic computer.
Electronic computers are starting to be used to control elevator cars. Elevator control systems employing an electronic computer include a read only memory device (which is abbreviated hereinafter as a "ROM") having stored therein data used with a program for controlling an associated elevator system. However, the ROM devices included in conventional elevator control systems have been required to store data peculiar to a mating elevator car because a building served by that elevator car may be different from other buildings in both the number of floors at which the elevator cars thereof stop and the vertical distance between each pair of adjacent floors. This has not only resulted in an expensive ROM device but also in the disadvantage that, upon the occurrence of a failure of the ROM device, an associated elevator car cannot again be operated unless the failed ROM device is exchanged for a new ROM device having stored therein data peculiar to that elevator system.
Alternatively, the required data may be rewritten into a ROM device at the location where the elevator car is installed. However, this measure is uneconomical only because the required writing and screening devices are expensive and the writing into the ROM device also consumes a fairly long period of time. Therefore, time elapses until the operation of the elevator system can be restored. Furthermore, if a new ROM device is produced in an associated factory, a considerable period of time must be anticipated for the necessary procedure, the transportation of the components, etc. As a result, the operation of the elevator car cannot be expected to be quickly restored.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to eliminate the disadvantages of the prior art practice as described above by the provision of a new and improved elevator control system in which, upon the occurrence of a failure of its ROM device, the time interval required to restore the elevator operation is as short as possible. Another object of the present invention is to design an elevator system which can be more cheaply constructed than a conventional elevator control system having an electronic computer.